‘Don’t think they had a shot’: Birmingham City boss underlines ease of Portsmouth victory

Chris Davies highlighted the dominance of his side over Pompey as they eased the pressure on the Birmingham City boss.

Davies believes his side served up arguably the best performance of 17-month tenure at St Andrews, as they pummelled John Mousinho’s men.

The head coach highlighted how his team carved out chances to have an even more dominant win, as they battered the Blues 4-0.

Pompey had no answer to the intensity of Birmingham’s start, as Davies’ men created a stream of openings but failed to make more of their first-half superiority.

It mattered little, however, as the Blues failed to turn up after the break and the big spenders smashed in three further finishes.

Davies saluted a performance he felt had been coming from this team this term, as they went into the game with a single win from six outings.

He told Birmingham Live: ‘I think it was really complete from our point of view, I was really pleased with a lot of it.

‘We started really well, really bright, really aggressive, a lot of quality, the best we played obviously this season, I don't think they had a shot on goal and we had probably five, six, seven big chances.

‘There was a lot in there and a lot I'm happy about because I think it's been coming we've been close in games, we've been tight and fine margins. I'm pleased that we managed to bring it all together today.

‘I think it's up there (among Birmingham’s best displays of his tenure). I thought we had some good bits and people say, “How?” But against Hull, I thought we had some really good bits with the ball, just sloppy defensively on a few occasions.

‘I think the Swansea game I liked us, I thought we were pretty fluid and moments in other games But as a complete performance to bring everything together it was by far our best of the season.’

Pompey were undone by shocking defending, with three of Birmingham’s four goals coming from set-pieces. Paik Seung-Ho was afforded the freedom of the penalty to head in the opener, before Tomoki Iwata flicked in the second and Christoph Klarer thundered home a third after 61 minutes.

Davies added: ‘Set-pieces we have been working on, we obviously won a game up at Preston off a set-piece with a real good ball and timing.

‘We obviously worked a corner for the first goal which was something that we've been practising.

‘We've spent probably a bit more time on it, trying to make sure that like last week we played against Bristol, it was nothing in the game.

‘We had six corners, they had no corners, and like I said to the players “If we score one corner out of those six, the game's different. Maybe we draw, maybe we win 1-0 or 2-0”.

‘They are important, they can just unlock a game so we have been working on them, trying to get the right players in the right areas, basically.

‘I thought the deliveries on all three of them were very good actually, so that's important.’